Melbourne City Council has opted for the cash and in doing so is sucking out the life blood from late night city traders. Lord Mayor Robert Doyle in announcing that City Commuters will be forced to pay for late night on-street parking tried to claim that the additional 2 million dollars that is expected to be generated will be used to pay for Melbourne's Trees. I guess he could suggest that money will pay for Hospital care or some other emotional cause in need of funding to justify the cash grab.The benefit is that the Council will need to ensure that Grey ghost Traffic offers are available to enforce the on street parking fees, but this comes at a further cost and risk to officer security. Many car parking spaces are in low security poor lighting areas.
The fees certainly do nothing to assist Melbourne's declining retail trade sector with more and more businesses leaving the CDB for the suburban shopping center.
In the meantime Melbourne's bonus congestion Tax is still being spent on non commuter projects such as the free tourist bus. The City Council would be better off freeing up night time and weekend parking and providing a commuter bus service connecting South Yarra with East Melbourne Carlton, Parkville and North Melbourne communities.
1 comment:
Yes a grab for cash it is. Most municipal councils care nothing about proper parking/traffic management, it is always a grab for revenue.
Take my area for example. City Of Yarra vigorously enforces parking restrictions in high revenue yielding areas such as Smith Street, Gertrude Street, or Victoria Parade. However, if you look at back streets such as Taplin Street or other small residential streets, you will hardly ever see a parking officer.I would welcome more enforcement in residential streets, but councils look only to allocating manpower in areas which return the highest revenue yields.
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